UTC hires Adam Mims, Ricky Spradling to Mocs football coaching staff

UTC hires Adam Mims, Ricky Spradling to Mocs football coaching staff

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football coach Rusty Wright announced two coaching hires and an in-house promotion Thursday.

Adam Mims and Ricky Spradling will coach receivers and running backs, respectively. Zach Kramme steps into a more prominent role with the program this year, going from player personnel assistant in 2018 to recruiting coordinator.

The Times Free Press reported the hires were imminent earlier Thursday.

"Adam was at Furman in 2010 when I was there, so I have known him for some time," Wright stated in a release from the university. "I have watched his career grow over the years and am very excited to have him here. Ricky has been in the Southern Conference before and is a very hard-working and knowledgeable coach. They are both great additions to our staff.

"Zach has been very important to us during this transition. He is obsessed with recruiting, and I am excited to see how he is going to help us move the program forward."

Mims was a standout receiver at Furman, earning second team All-America honors from The Sports Network in 2010, when he served as team captain. He was a three-time All-SoCon selection and went on to spend a season with the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers and later with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League before beginning his coaching career as an offensive analyst at Samford for one year.

He was the receivers coach and passing game co-coordinator for two years at Presbyterian College, where he also served as the punt return coordinator, and worked this past season at Tennessee Tech.

Spradling, a native of Boca Raton, Florida, spent last season at North Greenville University as the program's receivers coach and four years at Furman, where he worked one year as a defensive line assistant and two years as outside linebackers coach before assuming running backs coach duties in 2016.

He was a three-year starter at quarterback for Mars Hill and after graduation joined the program's staff as receivers coach in 2012.

Kramme, a Georgia Southern University graduate, helped the Mocs grab a school-record six three-star recruits in the 2018 class. At GSU, where he was a student assistant for three years, he twice helped the Eagles achieve the top-ranked recruiting class in the Sun Belt Conference.